After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence, I opened my mouth to question her odd behavior, but a fist to my face derailed that train of thought before it could leave the station.
WHEN IN ROME...
The funny thing about vampires is that they completely upend how we normally perceive both power and threat. It’s not size that matters in the world of the undead, but age. Through methods I didn’t quite understand, a vampire’s strength seemed to be directly related to their time spent upon this Earth. One would normally take a look at someone like Sally and assume that a strong gust of wind could knock her over. That was a mistake. Though young by vamp standards, she had enough years behind her that she could have pimp-slapped me if we came to blows.
Case in point how I found myself on the floor, staring at the ceiling, and waiting for my accelerated healing to kick in and reset my jaw. I’d been hit harder during my short tenure as a vamp, but that didn’t make her punch any less unpleasant. Oh well, at least I hadn’t been knocked the fuck out.
I opened my mouth to speak, but first had to swallow a mouthful of blood, having nearly bitten my tongue in two when she’d connected. She used the delay to spin on her heel toward the rear of the floor.
“Get your fat ass up and into my office ... now.”
Gone was the timid flower of just a few moments earlier and in her place stood the Sally I’d come to know and ... well, let’s just say love wasn’t the first word that sprung to mind.
Wait ... her office?
Curious, I picked myself off the floor and followed as bidden.
She wasn’t kidding. Though most of the place was in disarray, the corner office – featuring a view that the executives at my company would have gladly killed each other for – was much further along. She took a seat in a leather executive chair behind a solid looking mahogany desk. Hell, she even had one of those Newton’s cradle toys to round out things.
I stepped inside and she nodded toward a chair in front of her desk. Feeling like I was about to be dressed down for some stupid corporate slight, I sat and waited to see what she had to say. I didn’t have to wait long.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she snarled, all trace of vulnerability gone.
“Is there a gas leak or something here?” I asked. “Because you’re acting a bit strange if I might say so.”
She raised an eyebrow and I could see a vein pop in her forehead ... quite the feat for someone with no heartbeat. “Do you think this is a joke?”
I reached over and lifted one of the balls of her desk toy. I let go and enjoyed the clack-clack sound they made as they bounced off each other. “Well, I guess this whole being dead thing is sort of a...”
Quick as a snake, she grabbed hold of the cradle and crushed it in her hand. The steel balls, loose of their moorings, rolled across the desk and clattered to the floor – loud in the silence of the room. “In about two seconds those are gonna be yours.”
“So you’re going to touch my balls?”
Sally’s eyes flashed black at my snark, and for a second there I was certain she’d launch herself across the desk and throttle me. Needless to say, she was unusually testy tonight.
Fortunately for me, she took a deep breath and sat back in her chair – a chair much more comfortable looking than the ass-cracker my butt was in. After a moment, she looked me in the eye, pity now coloring her expression, and asked, “You have no fucking clue what’s going on, do you?”
“I just got here,” I replied with a shrug. “All I saw was Alice giving me some attitude, followed by you acting like an extra from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Speaking of which, did I hear you call her Starlight?”
“Yeah,” she replied with a dismissive wave.
“Why?”
“It’s the same thing as Dusk Reaper. She decided she preferred her old coven name. A lot of the members are reverting back.”
“So they’d rather have stupid X-men code names?”
“I don’t know, maybe it makes them feel special or something.”
“Is that a fact ... Sally Sunset?”
She leaned forward and glared. “Say that stupid last name Night Razor saddled me with again and I’ll show you just how special I can be, Dr. Death.”
“Relax.” I held up my hands in mock surrender, inwardly sighing at the mention of my own idiotic coven name – sadly of my own choosing. “No need for violence.”
She rolled her eyes at me. “That’s the problem. You’re headed down the road toward a lot of violence, more than you bargained for in fact.”
“Just for the record, I didn’t really bargain for any.”
She ignored me and went on. “Did you see them all out there?”
“Uh ... yeah.”
“It wasn’t just Star.”
I thought back to a few short minutes earlier. Come to think of it, there had been an overabundance of hostility in the air. I’d dismissed it, though. I mean, they’re vampires for Christ’s sake. When were they not contemplating violence? Even so, during my short tenure among the undead I’d learned a few things – first and foremost being that there was a strict hierarchy of command. Vampires might act all badass around humans, but the second a higher ranking vamp walked into the room they’d turn into a can of instant pussy – just add water.
That had been the case with me, at least before tonight. As far as they were all aware, I’d taken the mantle of leadership from their former top dog. That made me the head honcho. As a result, my initial days as coven master had been filled with all sorts of ass-kissing and compliments toward my power. As someone who’d been force fed his fair share of slices from the bully cake in high school, I was well aware of how a little power could corrupt. Be that as it may, it was still fucking awesome! I could understand what absolute dictators saw in the job.
I thought about this for a few moments before asking, “All of that shit was directed at me?”
“Why the fuck did you think I put on that act out there? It certainly wasn’t because I was in awe of your mad leadership skills.”
“What? I thought my tough guy act was pretty convincing.”
“For a first grade play perhaps.” She stood up and turned toward one of the plate glass windows, staring out at the nighttime cityscape. “Face it. You’ve been slipping.”
“I have?”
She glanced backed toward me, a frown creasing her mouth as if she found what she was about to say next distasteful. “How many of the coven have you slept with?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Who in the coven have you fucked since you’ve been in charge?”
“Um?”
“Elena? Patrice? Firebird? Any of them?”
“Well, no.”
She shook her head in disgust. “At least you won’t need a shot of penicillin from being with that last bitch.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Do you see the problem here?”
“Not really.”
“You do understand that Jeff had each and every one of them, right?” she asked, using Night Razor’s rather mundane real name.
“You too, if I recall.”
“Yes,” she replied with gritted teeth. “Me too.”
I hadn’t been around to personally experience it, but I’d heard enough to conclude that Jeff had treated the ladies of his coven like his own personal harem. From the sound of things, he’d also been happy to let any of the guys he favored partake in his sloppy seconds.
When I’d first taken over, I’d been nearly bowled over by all the flirtation going on. Women whom I’d normally never have a shot with, outside of maybe my porn fantasies, were throwing themselves at me – mine for the taking. The problem was, I’d been well aware of Jeff’s douchebaggery. I wanted to create a different vibe with my rule, one based off of vampires behaving more human and less like filthy beasts of the night. As a result, tempting as it was – and oh God it was tempting – I’d decided to hold off for a while until such time as I’d earned a litt
le bit of the coven’s trust. At that point, I figured it would be a pussy feast that they’d sing about all the way in Valhalla.
Except that hadn’t happened. Hell, after a while the flirting had dropped off to nothing and I’d found myself back to where I’d been as a human: staring at the eye candy, but unable to sate my sweet tooth.
I didn’t like were this was going. “Okay, so I’m not a serial rapist. So what?”
“Exactly,” she replied as if that told me anything. “So how about killing? Have you offed anyone in the coven yet?”
“Hell no!”
“What about a good old-fashioned ass-beating?” I opened my mouth to reply in the negative, but she held up a hand. “I already know the answer, genius. You may treat this coven as your weekend getaway from your two live-in boyfriends”―referring to my roommates Tom and Ed―“but I’m here twenty-four seven and, believe me, I keep an eye on these things.”
“So let me get this straight. You’re saying all that shit from earlier is because I’ve been a nice guy?”
“Yes,” she replied, leaning over her desk and affording me a glimpse of her generous cleavage. She quickly snapped her fingers, directing my eyes back up to hers. “And you’d better believe that saying about nice guys is true, because your ass is about to come in dead last.”
HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN
“Seriously? They want to kill me just because I’m being a decent person?”
“No.” She stepped around her desk, sat upon it, and crossed one shapely leg over the other. It wasn’t much, but in that one movement she made Eliza’s nearly naked body look like a frump in comparison. “Being a decent person is just ticking them off.”
“So then...”
“Losing their respect and coming across as a weak pansy-ass is what’s making them want to kill you.”
“How? As far as they know, I wiped the fucking floor with Jeff. Hell, then there’s all that Freewill bullshit you’ve been spreading.”
Freewills were supposedly legendary warriors of the vampire race, but before I showed up it had been more than half a millennia since one had been born. As a result, the vast majority of the vamps I’d met knew little to nothing about them – most of the coven being far under a century in age. To them, Freewills were legend and myth with no basis in reality. Sally had used that to her advantage. Working with James, the vampire we reported to in the grand scheme of things, she’d spread enough rumors to ensure that most of the coven gave me a wide berth during those first few nights of my existence. She’d spread bullshit like a master chef making a plate of gold-covered truffles and it had worked.
“I’m well aware.” She shook her head. “But then you had to go and fuck it up tonight.”
“Wait. I haven’t done anything tonight. I stopped by the Loft for a few minutes and then came here.”
“And who was there?”
“Eliza and Dipshit Reaper.”
“They weren’t the only ones. Dread Stalker was in the other room with Vanessa.”
Of course. Why wouldn’t he be? Jeez, was I the only guy in this place who wasn’t getting any? “Okay, so?”
“So, you pussed out in front of Dusk Reaper.”
“I didn’t puss out. I was gonna hang there, but then I saw that he was making a fucking mess. So I left.”
“Oh? He didn’t get in your face about anything?”
“Well, yeah a bit...”
“He didn’t openly defy you?”
“Okay, he might have done that a little.”
“And did you kick the ever-unliving shit out of him for it?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“I told him to clean up his mess and then I walked out.”
“Yeah, well guess what, mighty Freewill, that’s what’s known as pussing out in the vampire world. You do not let an inferior give you lip and get away with it ever.”
“I told him not to do it again.”
“Did your parents ever tell you that when you were a kid?”
“All the time.”
“Did it work?”
Hmm, she may have had a point there.
Sally stared me in the eye, her gaze softening ever so slightly as if she felt some pity for my situation. Unfortunately, her tongue didn’t get the memo. “Here’s the deal: Jeff could get away with telling us to never do something again because he was always making an example of someone. It didn’t matter who. We all got a taste of it. Bottom line was we were all...” She hesitated for a moment.
“Afraid of him?”
Her eyes narrowed at me and I realized maybe that hadn’t been the ideal choice of words. “I was going to say wary of getting on his bad side. During his reign, he didn’t have any issues with using the tools given to him – fists or compulsion.”
At least she didn’t say brains, because from what I’d known of the guy he hadn’t exactly been packing a lot in the intellect department. Even so, when you’re the six-hundred pound gorilla in the room you don’t really need to be a Rhodes Scholar.
I let our discussion sink in for a few moments. Crap! And here I thought that the bullshit was behind me. I now saw that I’d merely crested a rise and found a whole new valley of it to traipse through.
At last I swallowed my pride, knowing Sally would probably skin me alive for it. “How badly did I fuck up?”
“Star is a good person to use for judging these things.”
“She was definitely giving me the stink-eye tonight.”
“Exactly,” she replied, deadpan. “She’s the type who wears her emotions on her sleeve. You’ll notice she’s been tiptoeing around you the past few months.”
“Not tonight. I saw nothing but contempt on her face.”
“Probably an act. Don’t tell her I said this or I’ll rip your nuts off, but she actually likes you.”
I perked up a bit. “Oh?”
“Not like that, Romeo. You and she are a lot alike ... outside of the minor difference that she’s gorgeous and you’re you.”
“Thanks for the ego boost.”
She ignored me and continued. “You’re both ... well, more or less human. She’s not an abusive asshole like most of the membership. After Jeff, you’re practically a ray of sunshine for someone like her. When the rumors started flying, though, I have little doubt she realized she had to make a choice. Unfortunately, for you ... and that means us ... she’s just smart enough to know which way the odds are leaning.”
“Rumors? Wait, what did Reaper do, start texting everyone the second I left?”
“More or less.”
What an asshole! See, that’s one of the things about the vampire lifestyle that drives me batshit. You’d think they’d all be a bunch of technology shunning monsters, content on skulking in dank tunnels until sunset hit and they swooped forth to prey upon the living. The reality was, in many ways modern covens more closely resembled high school cliques than anything. “So what now?”
“Now I try my best to do damage control. If they think you’re weak, then they’re gonna think your second-in-command is weak too.”
“I’ve always favored the term concubine.”
“And I’ve always favored the term eunuch, if you get my drift. Regardless, I can try to handle some stuff from my end. I’ll kick a few teeth in for show, that’ll slow things down. I can also keep sowing bullshit for you. Before he left, James shared with me a few extra tidbits about Freewills from our archives. Not much, mind you. Most of this shit is above even his pay grade. But enough that I can maybe spin a few more stories.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“Nope.”
That sucked. James was in charge of all vampire covens in the Northeast, a powerhouse of a vamp over five hundred years old. He was also a pretty cool dude from what I’d seen, which seemed to be a rarity among the undead. He could have ended this nonsense with a single appearance. Sadly, he’d been called away to Asia by his superiors. There was no telling when he’d be back
and his stand-in, Colin, wasn’t the type to give low-level schlubs like me any help at all.
“You think anyone will make a move against us?”
“Definitely a possibility.”
“Dusk Reaper?”
She rolled her eyes at that. “Not at first. He’s older than me, but too much of a coward deep down to try anything unless he thinks the others will back him up. The real danger is going to be if he can convince folks like Dread Stalker and Victor. They’re a lot tougher than him and they know how to fight.”
Uh, yeah. Goddamn. I really needed to take notes on who was sticking with their stupid coven names and who was dropping them.
“That’s the bigger problem. If that happens, they might decide to move on us in force. If so, we are fucked with a capital F.”
“So how do we rein things in?”
“We don’t. You do. Like it or not, Bill, you’re gonna have to do something to earn back their respect. Believe me when I say our lives depend on it.”
* * *
I needed time to think. It looked like most of the coven had departed for the evening to go about their own business, probably killing the shit out of people to spite the rules I’d recently laid down. That was fine by me – them being gone, not the killing people part. Sally was encouraging me to pick one of them as a sacrificial lamb and then ice their ass with extreme prejudice in a way the others would be able to respect. Sadly for us, I wasn’t particularly big on the idea of casual murder, not even if the person was a monumental asshole.
I also wasn’t entirely certain I could pull it off. I was easily the youngest vampire in the coven. Youngest equaled weakest for the undead. Sure, I might have more strength than a bodybuilder, but human standards didn’t really apply in this case. By vamp standards I was ... well, what I’d been for most of my life: a pudgy guy with very little muscle tone.
Sally had finally stopped badgering me when I promised to come up with something. Though I was loathe to admit it, she had a point. Having seen enough vampires in action, I knew that talk was cheap among their kind. They’d kill a person or another vamp without a moment’s hesitation. I still wasn’t certain whether living for all eternity appealed to me or not, but I had to admit I definitely didn’t relish the prospect of dying young.
Night Stalker: from the Tome of Bill Series Page 2
